Tuesday, July 24, 2007

Press release

Almost 20 years after Guy Hocquenghem’s death (August 1988), the DVD of the documentary which relates the life of this militant writer and journalist, is released.

The revolution of desire, by Alessandro Avellis and Gabriele Ferluga, follows the way which carried out some young rebels of May 68, to feminism, until the foundation of the FHAR (Homosexual Revolutionary Action Front). It is also the occasion to pay homage to two eminent figures of this movement, the writer and feminist Françoise d'Eaubonne (recently passed away), and the beautiful rebel Guy Hocquenghem. A long time forgotten, due to his attacks against the intelligentsia of President Mitterrand’s friends in the yuppies period, this odd essay writer returns to fashion in the Nineties in the USA, thanks to the influence that his works have in the development of the queer theory. According to the philosopher Didier Eribon, this theory, born in the departments of gay studies of the American universities and quickly widespread everywhere in the world, "can be regarded as a rediscovery of political and theoretical questionings of the FHAR and, at the same time, of Hocquenghem’s criticisms against them”. In The homosexual desire, according to the theories developed by Deleuze and Guattari, as well as by his spiritual father and friend of a whole life, René Schérer, Hocquenghem wants to make leave sexuality Freud’s oedipian triangle and focuses on an anal sexuality as an element of lack of differentiation between the two genders, and he writes: "our asshole is revolutionary".Guy Hocquenghem was especially persuaded that homosexuality could not be reconciled with a social normalization. What he could not imagine, it was the appearance of a terrible virus which went, by a tragic irony and during about fifteen years, to normalize the gays which became worthy of human compassion, from a social and right-thinking point of view. The same virus was going to kill him at 41 years, while at the same time he began a promising literary career. Today, the theories of Hocquenghem return to fashion. A revolutionary or at least a rebel idea of homosexuality is still possible, in a global world which conformed the gays to the all-marketing laws and the ultra liberalism. To be opposed to the false tolerance of some politics, to criticize the electoral chicaneries of President Sarkozy who, in spite of the beautiful speeches, keeps in his party the homophobe Mr. Vanneste, to condemn who dedicates with a big pomp the Parisian square near Notre Dame to the reactionary pope John Paul II, to militate for the rights of the transsexuals, are still the objectives of an antagonistic and lively part of the LGBT movement. In this documentary, the authors chose to connect the FHAR with the Pink Panthers ("Dykes and fags attack" is one their slogans) and try to understand the influences that the ancient young and full of ideology people of yesterday, can have nowadays on the present (and perhaps a little more disillusioned) militants. Appeared in 1986, the Guy Hocquenghem’s Open letter to those which passed from the Mao collar to the Rotary club, shows that the thought of this writer perfectly applies to the present time. He examines the ideas of the "new philosophers" of President Giscard period and of the various representatives of President Mitterrand period. He uses his personal memories of the barricades of May 68 and a lot of public statements, in order to draw the portrait of a generation which, mainly, disavowed its values and which passed from the pacifism and the great ideals of the young jet set to the militarism, to the support of the nuclear power and to the capitalist system. Guy Hocquenghem would not have been astonished to see Mr. Kouchner in Mr. Fillon government...The revolution of desire, by Alessandro Avellis and Gabriele Ferluga. Dvd release on June 23, by Hystérie Prod.

The authors

Alessandro Avellis was born in Bari (Italy) on 30 September 1975. He studied film direction in Rome. He attended some training courses with Suso Cecchi D’Amico, Theo Angelopoulos and Furio Scarpelli. Since 2000 he lives in Paris. After some short films, of which the first one was selected in 1996 at the Sacher festival of Nanni Moretti, he directed in 2005 his first feature film, My super 8 season (see the teaser).

Gabriele Ferluga was born in Gorizia (Italy) in 1973. It aimed his studies at the history of homosexuality. He lives in Paris since 2001. After a study on the situation of gay people in Serbia, he wrote "The Braibanti trial" (Zamorani), a book on the lawsuit against an Italian poet, condemned in 1968 because of his homosexuality. He collaborated in the historical research for the screenplay of "My super 8 season".».